Necrophobic - Bloodhymns

*=Staff's pick	Taste Of Black* Dreams Shall Flesh Act Of Rebellion Shadowseeds* Mourningsoul* Helfire Cult Of Blood Rots Of Heldrasil Blood Anthems Among The Storms*

Genre	Death/Black Metal	Tobias Sidegård	Vocals
Tracks	10	Sebastian Ramstedt	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	Johan Bergebäck	Guitar
Label	Hammerheart Records	Tobias Sidegård	Bass
Release	14 Dec. 2002	Joakim Sterner	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Amon Amarth, At The Gates, Dissection

Bloodhymns is the titel of Swedish Necrophobic´s latest release up to date. This is also the first album on their new label, Hammerheart Records (NL). After three full length albums on Black Mark, with “The Third Anti-christ” -99 as the last album on the swedish label, Necrophobic started looking for other label options and ended up with Hammerheart rec. Well enough sad about the past. Bloodhymns are in my oppinion a kind of concept album, with its story pumping red in the necrophobic veins..

A Furious thrashriff with a pounding bassline introduce us to Bloodhymns with the first song called “Taste of black”. Its as aggressive as its always been when it comes to Necrophobic. The first song frase “Ancient beast..” shows the capability that lies in Tobias Sidegårds voice, very aggressive and perhaps a little darker than on the bands earlier releases. The second song “Dreams shall flesh” starts with a mid-tempo, but sone some grindparts are suitable placed in the line of heavy melodies. Now fast forward, “Act of rebellion” is a heavy track with a really good part in the song when the vocals goes like: “Sinners come, sinners burn, sinners never leave. I´m not like them, I will return…My vengeance you will see..” followed by a part with keyboard and a cool guitar melody. After this its time for a favorite on this album called “Shadowseeds”. This is a very heavy, melancholy and kind of slow song with guitarworks that just won´t go out of my head! In my oppinion the real high(dark?)light on this album.

The record continues with other great songs like “Mourningsoul”, “Helfire”, “Blood Anthem” and “Among The Storms”. It is something about this record that draws my mind back to Slayer anno 1985-86, If it’s the guitarwork of Sebastian Ramstedt and Johan Bergebäck or the overall sound I don´t know. It’s a quite “dry and heavy” guitarsound and Necrophobic has succeded with an important thing worth to mention. Somewhere down in the dark catacombs of the Sunlight studio they have captured a very dark atmosphere through the hole album without letting it sound like the songs are to similar to each other. Must also say that the last song, the instrumental “Among The Storms” are together with “Shadowseeds” my absolute favorites.

I cant say that they are creative in the way of taking their music much forwards, and why should they? They have still the raw, hatefilled aggression that we have heard on previous albums like “Darkside” and “The Third Anti-christ”. The one thing that strikes me after listening to Bloodhymns is the production. It has a much heavier sound then previous albums like I mentioned earlier. Its obvius that Thomas Skogsberg at Sunlight studio have done a great job that really carries out the aggression and fury in Necrophobics music.

A really good album that is worth the money. If you are an old or a new fan of this swedish “patrol of death”, don’t hesitate to get it to your collection!

Production	Vocals	Compositions
10	8	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Tim